Pages

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

We leave the door open for one of our dogs, because he really does not like to go inside the house without being bribed or dragged, but he needs someplace cool to sleep off the afternoon sun.
But the birds see the windows in there, and they think it's a passage way.

We have remedied this by just leaving the door up enough for the dog to access, but this time we forgot, and it was full open.
She was stressed out, but eventually recovered and hummed away.

We love those little birds.
Marlin attempted to count out our change. She is wanting to go on a Disney cruise, and we are saving! She gave up after 30.00.

I guessed we had around 400.00. I suppose we'll find out eventually. We'll fill that bucket up! It's only a 1/8th full....One of those big old Poland spring water jugs.
Then we watched Addy. That brave, brave, man, check on the bee's.

They seem healthy, although not much honey for us this year.

But lots and lots of bee's.
I stay far away, and run when I hear the slightest buzz.
Aaahhhhhhhh!
I made my youngest son take these last few,

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

I sat up at the barn today, and I watched my boys at play, My girl was down at the house writing a list of ingredients for her newish passion, cooking/baking. I started thinking, prompted by the autumnal weather. You know, about September. Even though we don't do school, it's hard not to keep up with the Jonses', and think of projects, things, to do with the kids. I really sat and connected with them today. Tried to seperate my fear, and how they actually were doing. Turns out they are damn smart, and beyond fine. I don't need to worry about what the kids in their age range are doing. I decided to look at what kids their grade level are not often able to do . There were my kids, leading the way, following passions and talents, exceeding my expectations every day. Sure there are things they need to polish up on. But the things that really move them, the stuff that truly ignites them, man, they shine. Everything is really fine. I can no longer compare. We have chosen a very different path. Apples and oranges.You know, the scenic route versus the expressway. We'll get to the end to be sure. It may take a wee bit longer, but the drive, it will be slow and beautiful.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Well, we have just been hanging out trying to savor the last bits of summer. Soon enough, fall will approach, and it will be cold. I will miss the warmness, greeness, and buzzing, and all other lively things of summer. But we'll just deal with all that later. For now we've been,
Hanging out with friends,

swinging,

Lots,

and lots,

and lots,

of swinging.
Even Mama!

Experimenting

with

pollution,

Ichneumon wasp spotting,

crazy weird bug.
Garrison Keilloring,

Also been reading like crazy, hanging out with friends, baking, watching old baby videos and of younger days,
sigh..
Spending time at the barn as we can't as much when the very cold settles in. Planning a visit to the Cape to try and spot the Great White's. Planning a right after Christmas trip to visit a new niece, a nephew, a Brother/Uncle a very awesome SIL, some Volcanos, and migrating Humbacks in Hawaii. Researching what handheld GPS unit would fit our needs for hiking, and geocaching. Gonna pick out a new carpet, and a paint color as a winter house project.
Just the usual grind around here.

Marlin had a sleepover with one her best buds, and she was also the new owner of a pretty cool book. In fact it's the book titled " The Spa Princess Cookbook" by Barbara Beery. They decided to concoct the recipe,

Pink Peppermint Foot Glow. It was fun,

and slimy,

and soothing.

And many other things...
After a quick rinse,

and a close inspection,

it was decided that their feet were indeed baby soft.
That only meant one thing. It was time to head up the street for a professional manicure. Ev was all about it, and Kai was like "I am damn man".
So the four of us head up and got to the pampering.
It went a little something like this:

Ev was wicked cute about the whole thing and very specific in saying," I want gween. gween, gween, wed, wed."

and he did, and it was very fun. All boys and girls should get a full pampering now and then. It's special, and very, very, pwetty.

Our science kit touched on recycling this week, and composting came up.
The kids understood the concept and wanted to see it in action.
We aren't left with much to compost. Between the chickens, goats, horses, and dogs, we just don't have many scraps left to bury. So we made a mini compost and set out to see it work.
So first we picked items that we thought would breakdown:
pepper, peach slice, cabbage, potato chip, lettuce
and ones we figured would not:
Plastic bread tab, saran, and plastic label, soda tab.

We sorted them,
and put the organic matter on one side and the man mades on the other.

We buried them in our dirt

and kept them moist and waited for about 10 days.
Time to search!

After dumping our contents,

we found all of the manmade's and only a decomposing cabbage leaf, part of a lettuce, and a nasty bit of peach.
Verrrrrry interesting.